IBM announces dual-core and low-power G5s

Word first hit the wires yesterday that IBM had announced the long-awaited 970MP and 970FX processors at a forum in Japan. For those who don't follow the Apple scene obsessively, the 970MP is a dual-core G5 and the 970FX is a low-power G5 intended for use in portables. The Japanese press release was linked at Xlr8yourmac.com, with the English press release following it in the Ars forums this morning. Here are the basics on the two chips, ripped from M. Isobe's Xlr8yourmac post.

970MP

dual core

1.4-2.5GHz

each core has 1MB L2 cache (2MB total)

one core can be switched off for low power operation

Low Power 970FX

13W @ 1.4 GHz, 16W @ 1.6GHz (Typical)

The announcement raises a number of questions about timing, like, when will these parts be available? how long has IBM been sitting on them? if they're to be available soon then why did Apple switch? why the sudden leap in performance per Watt on the same process after a year with so little improvement?

I hope to be able to address these questions in a subsequent post, but for now my only comment is that the announcement seems to have caused a minor flare-up of the old platform wars in the MA. Enjoy it while it lasts, folks. I'm sort of sad to see it all go.

For what it's worth, I have reason to believe that the 970FX announcement could've been made sooner than today, and that IBM has been sitting on it for at least a month. As I said in my previous coverage of the Apple-Intel transition, Apple's jumping ship was less about IBM's roadmap and more about Intel's volume discounts, especially on non-PC chips like the XScale. But maybe I'll be able to write more on that later.